Pardon the non-WoW post today. It’s been slow in-game with the holidays keeping people busy and out of the game. And Illidan (US) is still plagued with horrendous lag during raid hours. Apparently other folks aren’t having any issues raiding, or at least the terrible instance servers are relegated to our battlegroup. Who knows.

So pardon the real-life story today. By trade I am a graphic artist and Flash developer. Got a degree in it, and have been working with it for almost a decade now (in my spare time and in an employment capacity). Considering I am 26, that’s not too shabby. I was lucky enough to have a job on campus as I went to school that was essentially a think-tank. A think-tank with very little to do other than play with software. I was developing an online multiplayer RPG in Flash just to see if I could. When Adobe released the Flex beta we all spent the next couple months throwing ourselves at that. Good times to be had by all.

Unfortunately it’s not so easy in the real world to find folks who need graphic designers or Flash developers, especially ones who don’t think you should also know C++, be a database administrator, or know PHP. Sure, I can write CSS, edit HTML, and all that. For the past year or so I’ve been doing contract work for a Fortune 50 telecommunications company (Non-disclosure agreement, make your own guesses). Well that contract ended and now I am looking for some more permanent work again.

It’s not a terrible spot to be in. My wife is a teacher so we are still bringing a full-time income in while I keep looking for something nearby. We aren’t much for relocating since all our family is near us. So it’s a challenge. With the economy the way it is, not too many companies are looking to retain a full time graphic person. And the ones who are are paying less than I made back in high school when I was a telemarketer. So it kind of sucks.

So that’s my little ramble today. Blog posting will continue as usual as I still try to find good topics to cover. And here is a pretty picture of mah new desk my wife bought me for Christmas (picture taken with the camera I bought her!)

Thoughts, comments, yadda yadda. Post ‘em.

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About Drotara

Drotara (or BehemothDan) considers himself a geek on many levels. A web developer and programmer by trade, he has no shortage of geeky hobbies. When not fulfilling husband and daddy duties, he enjoys WoW, the WoW TCG, Magic: The Gathering, and great board games with friends and family.

@Evidences So far it has been great. The filters on all the case fans do wonders to keep the dust out. Every now and then I use a compressed air can before we vacuum. The inside has stayed marvelously dust-free (or close to it).

It wasn’t quite as tool-less as my last Thermaltake but I have been happy with it.

@supertrooper I am running a AMD 64 X2 Dual Core 5400+ with an Nvidia 9800 GTX with 4 gigs of DDR2. The left monitor is an Asus and the right one is a Viewsonic. As mentioned, the case is one of the Antec 900s.

Dro – Been reading your blog quietly for the last year or so, as I leveled (and made my main) my hunter. Thanks for all your input and information, on a class that you clearly have mastery of, and I wish you best of luck in your search for work in these tough times. Also, nice rig and play area. – Cobraclutch, Exodar

Weblogs has Wowinsider who has BRK. How about having a chat with Gawker and getting yourself syndicated so that you can get paid for blogging /maintaining a site about WoW (and hunters). Maybe there’s no need for another Wowinsider, but then I thought there would never be room for another Thottbot until Wowhead came along.

From what I hear these are only very part time incomes for sure, but since you’re doing it anyway… ;)